


Screaming Universe

by theprydonian_archivist



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Character Study, Episode: s03e13 Last of the Time Lords, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-03-01
Updated: 2008-03-01
Packaged: 2018-07-15 01:14:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7199477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theprydonian_archivist/pseuds/theprydonian_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Au from LoTTL. <i>‘I guess this makes you Davros, locking the dangerous beings in a casing.’</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Screaming Universe

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Versaphile, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Prydonian](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Prydonian). Deciding that it needed to have a more long-term home, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact the e-mail address on [The Prydonian collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/theprydonian/profile).

The sound of silence is like an echo. It’s painful and brutal and simply not fair. He hears his downfall, feels it to his core. It feels and sounds like cacophony, like cymbals and drums falling to the floor and never resting, just falling on repeat.

Drums of war, over and over.

And all he can think is _‘it’s not fair’, ‘it’s not fair’, ‘it’s not fair’,_ because he never asked for this, never asked for the drums. They chose _him_ , and they only quell when he’s winning.

It’s abhorrent and unnatural, but it’s what drives him, it’s his will, it’s his _right_ to live. 

And it’s silent here. His kind of silent, the kind that burns and scalds, the drums angry in his head, scolding with a crescendo that breaks and hammers, a war on repeat, the sound of cannons and rustic artillery. 

The sound of dying, the repeated sound of his deaths, adding up, piling on top of themselves, hearing himself scream each time from the pain, the screams on repeat, repeat, repeat in his head like drums.

But no, not _like_ drums, they _are_ drums. One and the same, weaved together, welded into the same matter, screams and drums, the sound of dying.

The Doctor walks to him as he sits perched on the steps of the Valiant, chin in hand just watching as his plan is deconstructed, people running around, frantically trying to fix everything. 

The Doctor has him exactly where he wants him, the sanctimonious twat. The Master can feel the glee pouring out of him as people rush up to him, asking what they can do to help. The Master can’t move, because he’s wearing a perception filter and the moment he does move, there will be a number of heavily armed Americans on him, cuffing him and dragging him away to some disgusting holding cell in their country. _Then_ he’d have to wait for the Doctor to either break him out or bail him out. The threat the Doctor _actually_ used was _‘Don’t move or they’ll arrest you, and I won’t come and get you while you live out your last long days in an American prison’_ , but the Master knows that he’d never do that. Too much of a risk, because the Master would get out sooner or later (probably sooner) and _‘then where would they be?’_

The Master had argued but all he’d said was _‘it’s your fault for assassinating the United States president’._

And the silence rages because everything is so loud on the inside that the rampaging noises, from hundreds of people hunting for a man right in front of them wearing something that almost constitutes as an invisibility cloak, don’t even register. They’re silent, silent people without voices coming from their open mouths as they bark out voiceless orders.

All he can hear is the drumming, the repercussions of his downfall. And it’s not fair.

He just sits there, chin cupped in his hand… and waits.

~*~

The silence on the TARDIS is worse. The Doctor fashions a tall sphere out of pharogh-glass that blocks telepathy and restricts movement. And he leaves him there. It’s an invisible cage, but it’s completely real, completely solid, and he can’t leave the room. He can walk around the console room, but he can’t touch, can’t feel.

_‘I guess this makes you Davros, locking the dangerous beings in a casing.’_

It’s silent without the background telepathy, the random mutterings of mental voices from the humans that don’t even realise they _have_ the talent, let alone being able to use it. He almost even misses the Doctor’s mental voice, as nattering and annoying as it is.

_‘Although Davros at least gave the daleks something to defend themselves with.’_

He sits on the bottom of the sphere. In a way, it’s like a zero room, and furniture can fashion itself out of thoughts. But the Master doesn’t really like to entertain his own thoughts, and he doesn’t even want to think about what it would be like if he made himself a chair out of screaming drums. So he sits on the smooth glass and cups his chin in his hand… and waits.

The Doctor doesn’t hear him. The sphere blocks out anything unwanted, like real selective hearing. The poor Doctor doesn’t want to be hurt. Well who is he to not suffer while the Master lays on the bed of nails in a spherical cage, so slippery, without any handholds whatsoever. 

‘Let me out,’ he asserts one day, voice firm, more of a statement than a request. He refuses to beg. _That_ is the Doctor’s place, and if he begs, he will slip even lower than the sanctimonious hypocrite. 

The Doctor just looks at him, eyes as smooth as glass, brown retinas that were once so soulful and deep, now empty and shallow, pupils tiny in the bright glow of the console. He blinks, and the pupils widen and dilate, stars playing tricks with the light. He shakes his head. ‘You’ve lied too many times before.’

One day, the Doctor gets a phone call from Martha that speaks of fire and storm, of rage and wind and rain that burns and swirls around the entire planet, comet fire spreading wildly while the weather plays havoc.

He has to go, she says, because there’s no-one else to turn to. 

The Doctor winches the Master up above, hovering near the rotor in his round, slippery cage, and looks at him with those sad, calm, calculating eyes.

He leaves, and the Master waits. 

And waits.

And waits.

He knows he’s going mad here.

It’s silent.

So silent.

He screams for hours, screams so loudly to try and reach someone, anyone, try to fill the empty void, this hell, this empty room, without even the sound of the TARDIS’s hum in his mind.

But his screams leave echoes that mingle with the taunting beat of the drums forged from death-screams. 

The echo… oh, the echo. It burns.

His voice leaves him after the third hour.

Empty.

Pointless.

Lifeless.

Mad. 

Lonely.

~*~

The Doctor comes back a long time later and lowers the sphere. He leaves for an hour and then returns with the Master’s food and a plate for himself, setting the sphere to liquefy at only his touch and slipping the full plate into the bubble. The Master hasn’t eaten for a week, not since the Doctor left.

He feels empty, even when the food fills his body.

After an hour, even the Doctor notices. The Doctor, who claims to be perceptive, who lords his intelligence over anyone he can find with a lesser mind, doesn’t notice the lack of fire that the Master used to hold in his hearts, however twisted they may be.

His muscles are dead from sitting in the same position for hours, and his head is limp on his neck as the cutlery finds its way to his mouth. 

One day, the Doctor sets the bubble to liquefy, and the moment the Master touches the orb, it shimmers to his own touch, a ripple effect running from his single finger.

He steps through, and joins the Doctor by the doors of the TARDIS. His muscles burn, aching with the feeling of being immobile for far too long.

Outside is a land with green grasses stretching for miles, flowers dotting here, there, everywhere. The skies are blue, clear, rising higher and higher. 

The Doctor turns to him and says, ‘let me help.’

The Master returns to the bubble and lets it solidify around him.

The Doctor bids him to tear this light away, to sink so low that he must accept help from this, his mortal enemy. He won’t. He can’t. 

For an entire day, the Doctor speaks nothing of anything but the Academy. The same day, the Master asks him bitterly why he hasn’t gone adventuring while the prisoner sits in his now self-appointed cage. 

That day, the Doctor turns to him and says, ‘you’d go insane if I did.’

The Master knows he’s right. The Doctor left, once, and he can still remember the echoes, the screaming.

But he doesn’t want his pity.

He stops eating, after a while, and soon the Doctor liquefies the bubble again, asking him with calculated eyes to be kind on himself.

The Master can’t stand the silence anymore, and he nods his acquiescence.

He feels like he’s kneeling for the Doctor with that one nod, but he’s not. He stands tall, next to the last member of his race, beside himself, and feels like the smallest atom in the universe.

He can’t stand this any longer.

The bubble is on the other side of the room, an ever-present threat of what will happen if the Master steps out of line.

One day, when the Doctor is by the console, the Master stares at the scanner, seeing nothing but the screaming universe. He walks to the doors, pulls them open, and jumps. 

Standing in the doorway, the Doctor watches him fall. He’s dead the moment he leaves the protective field of the TARDIS’s shields, but there isn’t anything the Doctor can do to ‘save’ him this time.

He wins.


End file.
